Users logging onto chat based fitness portal Fitcircle can go through the entire process from registration to getting a diet and fitness plan tailored as per their requirements without having any interaction with another human being.

It’s not very different for people seeking financial advice on AdviseSure.

Monjin, a video based interviewing service uses an artificial intelligence based system to match interviewers with interviewees and to categorise the interview.

Welcome to a new set of startups which are using a mix of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and chat bots to take automation beyond just the mechanical aspect of removing human interaction.

Aarti Gill, founder, Fitcircle said, “Based on your responses, the bot will understand your profile and match it with the existing information we have - it can recognise a positive or negative sentiment - and cater the responses accordingly.”

The startup has over 600 diet plans that the bots can choose from and recommend, and Gill said that they’ve done 22,000 consultations in less than four months. For people who have more specific queries, there are actual experts on hand to help.

AdviseSure, an investment advisory portal, calls itself a robo-financial advisor, and uses algorithms to determine the most appropriate investment advice based on a set of six questions.

Abhimanyu Sofat, co-founder AdviseSure said, “We do risk mapping using software and look at portfolio options using statistical measures. We back tested the results to see if the suggestions generated were accurate and relevant to the customer. We look at factors like risk profile, age etc to come up with the set of suggestions for the customer.”

The company wants to bring in a technology driven approach to investing, but at the same time, has experts on hand if needed. The reason to go the bionic route was simple - scalability.

The biggest advantage of using models like this is that it allows for the company to build scale without needing to have a huge team of people on hand. The main investment is in building the technology but increasingly, companies are starting to provide AI bots-as-a-service which would only lead to more new ventures in this space.

Abhijit Kashyape, CEO, Monjin, said that they used a mix of AI and machine learning tools, like richness index and path finding AI to create an intelligent self-learning system. This is a video based interviewing company which matches candidates to interviewers and provides ready interviews to companies looking for people.

“The system will match candidates with interviewers and automatically schedule interviews. During the interview, the tags (to categorise it) are auto populated and the interviewer can select which ones to add. Once the system notes what tags are used for different kinds of interviews, it will automatically use them for similar interviews in the future.”

When an interview is liked, the system takes feedback, learns and improves matches over time. The company does about 3500 interviews a day and the match level is currently at 80%.

A key part of ensuring that these systems are effective depends on how the questions are framed, making it easier for the system to recognise the responses. Gill said that at present, the split between the consultations done by the bots versus experts would be 40-60, but it would ideally settle at 70-30 as they trained the bots better.